


Love Like War

by LocketShoru



Category: Saint Seiya, 聖闘士星矢: 冥王神話 | Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, First Meetings, Humour, Libra Dohko's POV, M/M, Minor Angst, Pisces Albafica's POV, Saint Seiya Week 2020, mild pining, no beta we die like gold saints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25724077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/LocketShoru
Summary: [Day 3: Soulmates] When two soulmates are born, their first words to each other are written on their forearms. When your soulmate by their own words is very obviously on the other side of the Holy War, this can make a Gold Saint's dating life incredibly frustrating. And no matter how much one practices what they'll say to their one true love, sometimes it doesn't quite work out the way it's hoped to.
Relationships: Griffon Minos/Pisces Albafica, Libra Dohko/Bennu Kagaho, Pisces Albafica & Libra Dohko
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39
Collections: SAINT SEIYA WEEK 2020





	Love Like War

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be real I just had the Magia Record soundtrack on while writing this. But the titular song, [A Love Like War](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVTsGk2f3Ho) is by All Time Low! Seemed fitting, it was in my 'possible titles' list.  
> Side pairings include Rasgado/Sisyphus. Minor characters include Lugonis, the Rozan Dragon, Sage, and Rasgado, the last of which is just a really supportive bro.  
> 

Lugonis stared at the words, silvery-violet in a flourishing cursive, still a little blurry but legible nonetheless, on the left forearm of his newborn son. _Well, shit_ , he thought, and did not know that those very words were going to be thought quite a lot about the branding soulmark on Albafica’s forearm. He thought about the words in crabby, spiked green-brown writing on his own arm, and thought that it was kind of ironic that the world had seen what he had been through, and decided to ensure that he knew someone who had a worse hand of cards.

The great Master Dragon had seen many a child come and go, and rarely had he regretted the deals he’d forged and the bonds he’d made. But this was one of those seldom-come times, when he looked at the small, sleeping child in a nest of hay and featherdown, and the almost-burn of the violet-red scrawl on his arm. It was not as if he could refuse Athena on this, even if it would prevent tragedy. He would simply have to train Dohko differently, and prepare him for what lay ahead, even if he did not know precisely the nature of the beast.

It is unknown what came first: the strange mechanism that decides on who completes you, who enhances your every move and compliments you; or humanity’s invention of the written word. What is known is that cultures with no written version of their languages do not have them, and if there are humans from those cultures that learned a written language, then the words do appear on their counterparts. But here is what is known:

Your soulmate’s first words to you are written in their own handwriting on the inner part of your left forearm, in colours that best represent them. If they feel strong emotions, you feel slivers of it. If they are in pain, you will feel a lesser version of it, in the same places. You cannot choose them, or change who you end up with. If they die, the words turn smudged and colourless, and a part of you dies with them. And if they are near, you will always, always know.

Twelve Gold Saints, a Silver Saint, the Grand Master, and the Lady Athena Sasha were seated around a table not far from the Grand Master’s receiving chamber, several scrolls of various strategies and bits of crucial information scattered across its surface. Albafica was seated near the end of the table, between Libra Dohko and Aries Shion, and was in the slow, careful process of inching his chair away from both of them. It would be rather inconvenient if they both died of poison before either one could see battle against Hades. He wore his Cloth and his best gambeson, complete with bicep-high gloves that he tried to never be without.

Pope Sage cleared his throat, and looked around, meeting every Gold Saint in the eye. “There is… one final topic, that needs to be addressed before we adjourn. Several of you have found your opposite numbers. Several of you, as well, have not.”

Albafica kept his face carefully stoic, hiding nothing, betraying nothing. The silvery-violet words on his forearm were reason enough to remove his rank from him. He hated lying to everyone, but he also enjoyed being alive sometimes, and did not care to test how valuable they considered him over the potential risk. Pope Sage addressed each Saint, asking simply whether they had found their opposite number yet. Albafica answered in the negative, to nobody’s surprise. More than once he’d been told he probably didn’t have one with how he reacted to others. Surprisingly, he didn’t much care.

Sage finished with Leo Regulus - who, much to the chagrin of everyone still waiting, had found his and seemed quite delighted about it. “So, then. Those of you who do not have your soulmates yet. We are going into a war, and there is little time for romance, or getting distracted from your duty. If you find your soulmate during the war, report back to me at your earliest opportunity, and present them here. If they are fighting, they may keep their rank. If they are not, we must place them somewhere safe, away from the battlefield. You do not want them dead and avoidably so, and we will take measures to prevent that.”

Dohko raised his hand from where it had been resting against his temple. He had not yet found his, and didn’t seem all that grumpy about it. Evidently, he’d rolled the odds and did well enough that they gave him a clue. Albafica hoped it was better than his. “Where would we be putting them? If they’ve got a family to take care of, or other commitments, are we forcing them to leave them if they’re in the way of danger?”

Sage nodded. “Yes, they will have to leave those commitments. Their safety is priority, and if the both of you live through the war and survive, then those commitments can be rebuilt.”

Dohko nodded, the corners of his mouth curving downward, and said nothing. Albafica wondered if he had a bad hand of cards after all. 

Not long later had him out near Rodorio, fortifying the roses. There was one way in and out of Sanctuary, now, and he controlled it. They wouldn’t survive more than two months if they were sieged and couldn’t get out for supplies, not to keep their army in fighting shape. But he wasn’t the one that was allowed to make plans, and he’d been forced to listen and do as he was told, even if he vocally disagreed on multiple occasions.

“Hey, Alba! Got a moment?” called a deep, youthful voice from the other side of the roses. He rose from them, sliding easily across the tops of rosebuds until he landed easily on the barren ground that everyone knew not to cross this close to the roses. He looked down to see Dohko, missing his gauntlets, pauldrons, and chestplate but still wearing half his Cloth, with the notable accessory of elbow-high gloves.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, flat and to the point. “You look as though you’re waiting for something.”

Dohko paused, as though considering his words carefully, and Albafica caught a surge of pain in his right ankle. He didn’t show it, though inwardly he winced. That was the problem he’d always been worried about: damn what the words said, it was what he’d grown up feeling that bothered him. His soulmate had spent a deeply alarming part of their life terrified, or in pain, or very, very angry. At this point, he could tell when a bone or several was broken on the other end of the connection. This wasn’t a broken ankle, but it was a sprain, and he resolved to put ice on it when he got back, in hopes it would help.

It would be a miracle if his opposite number survived long enough to say the words he hated so much, with how insistent they were of trying to walk off broken bones and internal bleeding.

“I… At the meeting, Sage mentioned soulmates and you looked just about ready to run,” Dohko started, slowly enough. Albafica’s eyes narrowed. He disliked others asking, and he disliked it now. “Do you already have yours, and just don’t want them taken away from you?”

“I don’t have them yet,” he answered, voice flat and dismissive, hoping to end the conversation as quickly as he could.

Dohko looked less reassured, if anything, and sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Are they another Saint?”

“Absolutely not.”

“All right, all right, I believe you.” Dohko looked away for a moment, scanning the horizon, and their eyes didn’t meet at his next words. “Yours is a Spectre too, aren’t they?”

His breath slammed on the brakes in his throat, and he froze, eyes ever so slightly widening. He replayed the sentence in his mind twice before he processed its full meaning. “What do you mean, ‘too’?” Dohko finally looked back at him, and glared. He raised both hands in a show of deescalation. “Peace, Dohko. I’m not sharing unless you do.”

“Remember that time I went to Naples a few months ago, on Sage’s orders, just in time to watch my late apprentice’s supposed childhood friend become Hades and then we couldn’t save him?” The words tumbled out of him, even if his voice caught on the word ‘late’ - Albafica was well aware Dohko wasn’t over not being able to save his apprentice - but he listened, knowing with a sinking feeling where this was going. “I didn’t manage to save him because my soulmate showed up. I didn’t see them, I don’t know who they are, but they were _there_ , and they saw me hit Hades with a technique and they’re coming.”

The last three words had more emphasis than anything else in his short tirade. Albafica blinked, and then asked, slowly, “Are they close? I can’t stop them from diving into my roses and getting themselves killed.”

Dohko shook his head, the motion turning into a shudder that wracked his whole body. “No, no - they’re not anywhere nearby. But…” He pulled his left glove off, and held up his forearm in the sunlight for Albafica to see.

The words were a curling scrawl, not unlike Dohko’s, written clearly with an Oriental-style brush over the fountain pen-like cursive on his own. They were a dark violet with shimmering scarlet highlights, indicative of what kind of person they might be.

“They’re coming,” Dohko said, quietly. “I hit Hades with a technique. They’re on their way.”

“And you’re telling me this why?” Albafica asked, one eyebrow slightly raised. And here he thought he had it bad. At least the words he had weren’t quite so… whatever that was. Vicious, maybe. Dohko’s opposite number clearly had a sharp tongue.

Dohko looked up. “Don’t kill them when they come looking for me,” he answered, his voice soft and almost desperate. Albafica had never heard him sound anything less than confident, and he sounded terrified. “They’ll be here, and here _soon_. They were upset, and now they’re furious, and on the move. And I know I can trust you. You wouldn’t have reacted that way when Sage brought it up if you didn’t have something to hide.”

Albafica glowered, but pulled the gauntlet of his Cloth off all the same, undid the careful wrapping around his forearm, and showed him. He had those silvery-violet words memorized, and had spun them every which way, trying to understand how they could be anything but the obvious.

Unfortunately, there was only one thing they could have been, and he hated every single letter of them.

Dohko winced. “That’s almost as bad as me,” he admitted. “At least yours isn’t on the offensive?”

“I’d call it rather daring, but as you like,” Albafica answered wearily. “Don’t tell Sage, all right? I’ll turn a blind eye to your soulmate if you turn a blind eye to mine.”

“Deal.”

“Still doing reconnaissance?” Rasgado called. “Dohko, when was the last time you stopped to _eat_?”

Dohko ignored him. They were moving fast, faster than the sun dropping in the sky. He’d been pacing for hours, sweeping their every weak spot in the mountains that someone could get through to jump at Albafica. If he found them before they found the gardens, then… Rasgado had it _lucky_. He’d run into his soulmate when his mentor had taken him into Sanctuary for the first time, running into him and scooping Sagittarius Sisyphus up into a bone-crushing hug at the spillage of German apologies and a yell that everyone heard.

He’d felt so many broken bones and unspilled tears that didn’t belong to him that it ached to be so close and know that he might never fix it. His soulmate had not lead a happy life so far, and every time he could feel something broken, he’d take ice to the wound and think about everything in his life that he loved. Maybe the joy would do his opposite number some good. Maybe they’d feel how concerned he was, and how much love he’d already reserved for them, knowing that they were going to hate him before they knew who he was.

A warmth flared at his back, unlike anything he’d ever experienced, save for one moment that had distracted him just long enough to allow his apprentice to die. He spun on his heel. “Rasgado get _down_!” he snapped, bolting to put himself between the other and the warmth now pointed at his chest, coming from the distinct southeast. Rasgado listened, kneeling without falling or showing any means of surrender.

“ _You!_ ” screamed a hoarse, gruff voice from over the cliff. With the sun in his eyes he couldn’t quite see where it was coming from, but he knew what words were going to come next, knew it as sure as he could feel fury in his chest, fury that wasn’t at all his own but utterly recognizable.

His soulmate had been angry for a long, long time. Maybe now, he’d understand why. Maybe he’d be able to convince them to stop. Or maybe, before any of that happened, they’d-

“You’re the one who wounded Lord Hades! I’ll kill you!" Dohko reacted before he saw them, jumping backward, allowing them to slam into the ground, shattering the rock into a crater as he landed on its edge. He’d been waiting for this moment, had recited and memorized and written so many speeches of true love for this moment, to explain himself, to calm his Spectre love down-

“ _Shèng lóng_ , can you maybe fucking chill?!” he screeched, a circle of green stars’-fire already wrapped around him, hands full of the same, ready in case that winged Spectre - oh, that Surplice was beautiful, and didn’t he hate it - jumped him before he heard what Dohko had said.

The dust cleared. Rasgado was beside him, arms folded, cosmos alarmed with the unasked question of why Dohko wasn’t fighting. The Spectre stood bent, as if he’d frozen when he landed, staring up at him with disbelief in pale eyes.

Deep, dark violet, like the flames of the scorched rock around them. And shimmering, blazing red, like a phoenix. A Bennu phoenix. His hair was short and gray-blue and from where Dohko was standing, looked Oriental, but he wasn’t sure where exactly at the distance.

Then, very slowly, the Spectre rose to stand, wings flared out on either side of him. Despite the dust, his armour glittered, not a scratch or dent on it. Unsurprisingly, he could see a faint scar down one side of his jaw - that very wound had kept him in the healers’ wing for hours with psychosomatic pains, trying to ease it for both of them. And then he spoke, his voice hoarse from screaming, gruff from lack of use. “What,” he began, “The _fuck_. Does that first part _mean_.”

It wasn’t a question. It was the last secret the universe had to show his Spectre love, and the second secret he’d likely ever known. Rasgado looked between the two of them, understanding and sorrowful sympathy flaring dual-toned in his cosmos, and stepped back, allowing them their space. Dohko would have to thank him for that later, if he didn’t forget completely in the wake of this.

“ _Shèng lóng_?” he repeated. “I-it’s from Lushan. It means ‘holy dragons’, as in holy dragons can you please relax and not try to stab me again? Because I feel like we can talk this one out.”

“Dragons,” his soulmate said, faintly. “This is- I don’t have words for this.” But he relaxed, and his cosmos dimmed slightly, in what was quite possibly the biggest gesture of trust he’d ever seen a Spectre display, even towards one of their fellows. Dohko stepped forward, and slid down the crater that his Spectre love had made. He’d known this was coming for a long, long time. He’d already made his peace with the fact he was damned to a lover on the opposite side of a three-thousand-year war.

“I’ve done some rehearsing,” Dohko answered wearily, when he could finally see him at eye level. Nevermind that his soulmate was apparently half a foot taller than him. He offered a shallow bow - better than jumping on him with affection, at least for now, and they looked to be close enough in culture that the gesture wouldn’t be confusing. “Libra Dohko, I kind of had a good reason for that one, please don’t kill me, he already took his vengeance.”

The Spectre looked at him warily, before mirroring him with a shallow bow of his own. Now at a closer distance, his eyes were pale violet, and he looked Japanese. Interesting. “Bennu Kagaho,” he said finally. “I’ll overlook it if you apologize.”

“What happens if I don’t do that, on the basis of ‘he murdered my apprentice’?” Dohko blurted, before thinking better of it, and immediately wishing he hadn’t said that. He inwardly kicked himself, and also found himself hoping that his Spectre love - Kagaho, _Kagaho_ was his name, what a lovely name, it meant radiant fire and wasn’t he _ever_ both - could feel his own idiocy, and forgave him for it.

One corner of Kagaho’s mouth twitched in amusement, and Dohko felt a pang of understanding, and of sorrow, that didn’t belong to him. That explained a lot. He wondered who Kagaho had lost, to get this far. “I’ll drag you to him myself, and sit on you until you do.”

“I suppose I can live with that,” Dohko agreed, and held his hands out, just enough that when Kagaho stepped forward, he caught him, and buried his face in Kagaho’s neck, able to rest his chin just above his breastplate. Enough that he could feel a gloved hand in his hair, and be all the gladder for it.

He settled down on the marble pillar, overlooking the weakest point of his garden, eyes closed against the sun as he waited. Dohko had damn near punched his door in a few nights ago until he’d answered, and then was shoved rather unceremoniously to the side as Dohko pulled a taller man inside, and excitedly introduced them to each other. Bennu Kagaho, for his part, was only somewhat sheepish about Dohko’s forearm declaring Kagaho’s initial attempt to murder his own soulmate. Apparently, they’d worked it out, and the three of them were up half the night talking. Kagaho had taken one look at Albafica’s forearm and proceeded to laugh his feathers off, refusing to elaborate but had informed him that he knew exactly whose handwriting that was, and that it probably didn’t mean what he thought it meant. He honestly, truly hoped that Kagaho was right.

The warmth in his foot - the closest point of him to his soulmate - was intensifying at the speed of someone at a quick, but relaxed walk. His soulmate was irritated and apprehensive, and not for the same reason. That much he knew. He could also feel a twisted shoulder, that had flared up in pain every few moments, corresponding with a flare of cosmos in the distance. But then again, his soulmate had been ignoring that injury for years, and they tended to aggravate it again every now and then.

He wondered how many of the Silver Saint guards his soulmate had just slaughtered. While he normally would have quite an opinion about this, this time, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. His soulmate was almost here. Almost time to learn which one of them was his. Almost time to pick between the some dozen phrases he’d decided would be good opening lines, since it was rather clear that the words on his arm were an answer, not a question or comment.

He opened his eyes, and watched the seven Spectres in varying dark armours come strolling up to the cliff, eyeing him from their vantage point. They were talking amongst themselves. He wondered if his soulmate knew. 

One - the middle one, with very pale hair and bloodstains across his surplice - stepped forward. Albafica rose from his seated position, caught the corner of his cape, and jumped down to land squarely in the roses, halving the distance between them. The irritation that wasn’t his faded in his chest, replaced with surprise and a mixture of terror and delight.

His soulmate - one of these Spectres, one of them who never should have had to become this - had spent so much of his life being scared of something. He was going to find out what. He was going to make it stop, so they never had to be scared again.

“Afternoon, Spectres,” he called, casually enough. He had no idea which one it was. He held out a hand, extended to the air, as if inviting one to jump down to see him. He’d told Kagaho and Dohko of all the phrases he’d decided on, and they’d rated them, and Kagaho had added his own input on what would get a decidedly better reaction than Dohko’d had. “Care to dance?”

The one in the middle, whose hair was pale and who had stepped forward, flared their wings, as if to stop the others from going forward. Albafica wasn’t concerned about the roses: if it was one thing he knew, it was that he could say for sure that soulmates were incapable of killing each other. The Spectre who was his wouldn’t be affected at all by the roses. But they would set the stage for what they needed to, in a more traditional sense. It only seemed right to meet his soulmate while standing in the midst of his greatest creation.

“For you, blessed with Hades’ own grace?” called the middle Spectre, and his voice was tenor and smooth, like fine rye or parchment scrolls, and Albafica loved it at once. “All night long, if that’s your desire.”

And then he jumped down, wings spread to ease his fall, and landed two feet from him, hand already finding his. Albafica smiled, the truest expression that had quite possibly ever been on his face.

“Well, that answers _that_ ,” he murmured, and his soulmate raised an eyebrow behind thick, white bangs. “I always thought it was lewd. I had about a dozen phrases picked out in hopes it wouldn’t be. Pisces Albafica, you?”

The Spectre paused, and started to laugh, and it was the soft kind of laugh that he wanted to hear forever. “Griffon Minos. Don’t ask how many hours I have spent rehearsing my answer. At least they were not wasted.”

Albafica smiled, and tugged him close, glad that it was Minos’ - _Minos_ was his name, as kingly as suited him - right hand in his, and not his left, which was attached to a wrenched shoulder. Minos stepped forward, arms slipping around his shoulders, as Albafica’s hands met his hips. Minos kissed him, and he tasted like starlight and white wine, and that was it: he was lost.


End file.
